It’s a good thing for the Devils this western trip ends tonight against Edmonton, the worst team in the league. Much more traveling and the recent league leaders will open the playoffs on that road that has been so bad to them lately.

Since returning from the Olympic break, the Devils have lost the Atlantic Division lead they’d held since Dec. 17. They stand only 3-6-1 in their last 10 games and 6-11-2 since their Jan. 12 high-water mark of 32-11-1 — more losses in their last 19 games than their first 44.

On the road, it’s even worse, 2-10-1 in 13 after falling 5-3 in Calgary to Brent Sutter’s Flames on Friday. The Buffalo/Ottawa chase is now threatening their standing as top runner-up, their current route to first-round home-ice that hasn’t helped their last three series, anyway.

Any lift from their trip-opening 4-3 victory in San Jose, holding on as the Sharks nearly erased their big lead, vanished in Calgary, as they trailed by four before making it respectable. They’ll have seven road games left this season after tonight.

In their first game after Lou Lamoriello failed to add a single righty defenseman, among eight now, instead acquiring another lefty in Martin Skoula, that vacancy haunted them again. Heroic workhorse Andy Greene, pressed by Sutter-alerted Flames into having to skate his backhand around the end boards, predictably coughed up the puck for a goal.

Lamoriello indicated he felt less pressed to land a righty defenseman after obtaining Ilya Kovalchuk for point duty, yet, there was Kovalchuk Friday, coughing it up at the point for a killer shorthander.

It will be a strategic point of attack against New Jersey, just as it was in the playoffs last spring. When in doubt, foes will go wide, left wing, against Devils defensemen trying their best, but left to look the off-side goats because of management’s failure to balance its backline, even to the tune of Just One.

The Devils return to Newark to play host to the Rangers Wednesday and Penguins Friday. . . . The Devils haven’t lost in Edmonton since Oct. 31, 1995, going 5-0-1 (a tie, remember them?) since.